Nowadays, the control of access rights in a networked computer structure, e.g. of a business firm, can be accomplished in various familiar ways. In a mobile motor vehicle, however, because of the completely different marginal conditions, there are also completely different structures and therefore demands placed on the control of individual access rights of different persons. Hereinafter, to be understood by the term “driver information system” is a software platform having applications which make information about, for example, traffic, travel routes, messages, communication possibilities such as mobile radio communication or Internet, and entertainment such as radio, CD, MP3, with an integrated control, available in a vehicle. At present, driver information systems contain software components which are operated, for example, in a monolithic system of an individual manufacturer that integrates the software components according to singular methods. The software components are also able to run on different hardware components of several manufacturers, which, for example, are connected to a multimedia bus system. Here as well, however, singular methods are used for the integration of the system, since presently no standard is established for the management of individual access rights of individual persons, particularly in a driver information system.
For a JAVA run-time environment, the industry consortium OSGI (Open Services Gateway Initiative) specifies an applications framework suitable for the integration of components in a software system. Various firms use this OSGI platform as the basis for the development of driver information systems. It supports the management of various software components and the communication between individual components. Moreover, interfaces are specified for predetermined system services. System components which take into account vehicle-specific restrictions and peculiarities, which the access control specifically concerns, are presently unknown, however.